Purple Rain (album)
| Purple Rain | ||||
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| Soundtrack by Prince and The Revolution | ||||
| Released | June 25, 1984 | |||
| Recorded | August 1983–March 1984 First Avenue St. Louis Park warehouse Sunset Sound (Minneapolis, Minnesota) |
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| Genre | Pop, rock, R&B, Funk, New Wave | |||
| Length | 43:51 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. 25110 |
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| Producer | Prince and The Revolution | |||
| Prince chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Purple Rain | ||||
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Purple Rain is an album by Prince and The Revolution, the soundtrack to the 1984 film Purple Rain.
Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in rock music history. Time magazine ranked it the 15th greatest album of all time in 1993, and it placed 18th on VH1's Greatest Rock and Roll Albums of All Time countdown. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it the second-best album of the 1980s and 72nd on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Zounds magazine ranked it the 18th greatest album of all time. Furthermore, the album placed 4th in Plásticos y Decibelios' list of The Greatest Albums of All Time. Finally, in 2007, the editors of Vanity Fair labeled it the best soundtrack of all time and Tempo magazine named it the greatest album of the 1980s.[1]
The 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly dated July 4, 2008 listed Purple Rain at number one on their list of the top 100 best albums of the past 25 years.[2] The RIAA lists it as having gone platinum 13 times over.[3]
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Background
Purple Rain was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1984, and was Prince's sixth album. Prince wrote all of the songs on the album, some with the input of fellow band members. Some of the tracks had portions recorded live when Prince performed on August 3, 1983, at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis. This show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater. It was also the first appearance in Prince's band, The Revolution, by Wendy Melvoin, his guitarist in the Purple Rain film and for a few years afterwards.
Music
Purple Rain was the first Prince album recorded with and officially credited to his backing group The Revolution. The resulting album was musically denser than Prince's previous one-man albums, emphasizing full band performances, and multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, icy electronic synthesizer effects, drum machines, and other instruments. Musically, Purple Rain remained grounded in the Minneapolis sound and R&B elements of Prince's previous work while demonstrating a more pronounced rock feel in its grooves and emphasis on guitar showmanship. As a soundtrack record, much of the music had a grandiose, synthesized, and even—by some evaluations—a vaguely psychedelic sheen to the production and performances. The music on Purple Rain is generally regarded as the most pop-oriented of Prince's career, though a number of elements point towards the more experimental pop/psychedelic records Prince would record after Purple Rain. As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of a myriad of styles, from pop rock to R&B to dance, is generally acknowledged to account in part for its enormous popularity.
In addition to the record's breakthrough sales, music critics noted the innovative and experimental aspects of the soundtrack's music, most famously on the spare, bass-less "When Doves Cry", which was frequently identified as pop at its most avant-garde. Other aspects of the music, especially its synthesis of electronic elements with organic instrumentation and full-band performances (some, as noted above, recorded live) along with its landmark consolidation of rock and R&B, were identified by critics as distinguishing, even experimental factors. Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic writes that Purple Rain finds Prince "consolidating his funk and R&B roots while moving boldly into pop, rock, and heavy metal" and identifies the record's nine songs as "uncompromising...forays into pop" and "stylistic experiments", echoing general sentiment that Purple Rain's music represented Prince at his most popular without forsaking his experimental bent.[4]
"Take Me with U" was originally written for the Apollonia 6 album, but was later pulled for Purple Rain. The inclusion of this song necessitated cuts to the suite-like "Computer Blue". The full version of this song was not subsequently given an official release, although a portion of the second section can be heard in the film Purple Rain, in a sequence where Prince walks in on the men of The Revolution rehearsing. The risqué lyrics of "Darling Nikki" eventually led to the use of Parental Advisory stickers and imprints on album covers by ways of Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center.
Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Yahoo! Music | (favorable) [5] |
| IGN | (10.0/10) [6] |
| Allmusic |  [7] |
| Spin | (9/10) [8] |
| Entertainment Weekly | (B) [9] |
| Rolling Stone | 2004 [10] |
| Robert Christgau | (A-) [11] |
| BBC Music | (favorable) [12] |
| Rolling Stone |  [13] |
Prince won two Grammy Awards in 1985 for Purple Rain, for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year. Prince won a third Grammy that year for Best R&B Song (songwriter) for Chaka Khan's cover of "I Feel for You". Purple Rain also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985.
Purple Rain sold 13 million units in the United States, earning a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America. According to Billboard magazine, the album spent 24 consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts (August 4, 1984 to January 18, 1985) becoming one of the top soundtracks ever. Purple Rain traded the #1 album chart position with Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. twice, during 1984 and 1985. Two songs from Purple Rain, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", would top the U.S. singles charts and were hits around the world, while the title track would go to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The album has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.[14]
Track listing
All songs composed and arranged by Prince; except "Computer Blue", words by Prince music by Prince, John L. Nelson, Wendy & Lisa, and Dr. Fink.
Side one
- "Let's Go Crazy" – 4:39
- "Take Me with U" – 3:54
- "The Beautiful Ones" – 5:13
- "Computer Blue" – 3:59
- "Darling Nikki" – 4:14
Side two
- "When Doves Cry" – 5:54
- "I Would Die 4 U" – 2:49
- "Baby I'm a Star" – 4:24
- "Purple Rain" – 8:41
Test pressing
The track listing to the November 7, 1983 test pressing[15]:
- "Let's Go Crazy"
- "The Beautiful Ones"
- "Computer Blue"
- "Darling Nikki"
- "Wednesday"
- "Purple Rain"
- "I Would Die 4 U"
- "Baby I'm a Star"
- "Father's Song"
Chart history
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- Chart procession and succession
| Preceded by Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen |
Billboard 200 number-one album August 4, 1984 - January 18, 1985 |
Succeeded by Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen |
| Preceded by Breaking Hearts by Elton John |
Australian Kent Music Report number-one album August 13 - August 19, 1984 |
Succeeded by Rodney Rude by Rodney Rude |
Personnel
- Prince: Guitars, bass guitar, keyboards, piano, lead singer
- Brown Mark: Bass guitar, vocals
- Lisa Coleman: Keyboards, piano, sitar, vocals
- Wendy Melvoin: Guitars, vocals
- Dr. Fink: Keyboards, organ, vocals
- Bobby Z.: Drums, percussion
- Apollonia Kotero: Vocals on "Take Me with U"
- David Coleman: Violin
- Suzie Katayama: Violin, viola
- Novi Novog: Violin, viola
See also
- List of best-selling albums worldwide
- List of best-selling albums in the United States
Notes
- ↑ "Prince's Purple Rain reigns over movie soundtrack list". CBC News. October 24, 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/10/24/best-soundtracks-prince.html.
- ↑ The New Classics: Music | EW 1000: Music | Music | The EW 1000 | Entertainment Weekly
- ↑ RIAA top 100 albums listing
- ↑ Purple Rain at Allmusic
- ↑ Yahoo! Music Review
- ↑ IGN Review
- ↑ Allmusic Review
- ↑ Spin Review
- ↑ Entertainment Weekly Review
- ↑ Hoard (2004), p. 655.
- ↑ Robert Christgau Review
- ↑ BBC Music Review
- ↑ Rolling Stone Review
- ↑ "Those chart busters". Hindustan Times. 2008-12-09. http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=NLetter&id=40e182fc-061c-43d5-832e-ff930aa4a508&Headline=Those+chart+busters. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ↑ DanceMusicSexRomance: Prince - The First Decade, Per Nilsen, p. 263
References
- Nathan Brackett, Christian Hoard (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated 4th Edition. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-74320-169-8.
External links
- Purple Rain at Discogs
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